Fall colors

The Home Garden blog is celebrating Fall by gathering together blog posts that showcase fall color in their areas. I was beginning to think that we would not have any color to boast about this year. It has been a bad year for the garden - bone-dry conditions from drought being the chief culprit. October is usually a gloriously colorful month here in north Alabama. This year, it is late and we've even had a few frosts already.  A lot of leaves have been lost already before they had a chance to change color. However, the last few weeks has brought about a magical change. Last night brought rain (hooray!), so I rushed yesterday to get a few shots of the garden in her coat of many colors.

The first two photos were taken from the street (W. Limestone) which borders the north side of our property. Ornamental grass "Adagio" and oakleaf hydrangea "Sikes Dwarf" are planted outside the fence. In the background, you can see the foliage of Japanese Maple "Boskoop Glory" and Red Maple "Autumn Blaze". The yellow leaves on the left are also from a red maple.



Hydrangeas, the macrophylla and serrata types, are also very colorful in the fall season. The large yellow tree in the background is actually in our neighbors yard (the lower garden lies between it and this bed) and I don't know what it is.

Standing in front of the bird bath that you see in the above photos, I took this shot looking down along the patio. A Chinese Pistache tree is planted on the patio (to the right). In the background, you can see Japanese Maple "Sango-Kaku", Dogwood and Sugar Maple.

The "Sango-kaku" Japanese Maple is one of my favorites -

The large Dogwood trees were here when we moved in. They offer pleasure in every season -

On the opposite end of the house (the north side) is a small area I created underneath the Yoshino Cherry tree. The crape myrtle in the background was also here when we moved in and I tried to kill it several times (imagine that!). It has beautiful pink flowers that we can see outside our kitchen window as well as brilliant fall color. That is Chester on the bench.

Around the corner to the front garden, you see Japanese Maple "Boskoop Glory" again. The large tree on the left was one of the first I ever planted - a red maple that was on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart. I was very miffed when I saw that the leaves were yellow but I now love it.

Not a lot of color looking inside from the front gate but I wanted to show off the Armandii clematis that I'm very proud of. "Autumn Blaze" maple in the background to the left) -

And finally, a beautiful wisteria inside the secret garden -

Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy